


A Long Life for You and Me

by overcomingthedark



Category: Runaways (Comics), Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Flowers, Longing, Rated T for language, Twilight References, but gert is gert stuck inside her own head so yeah that's what this is, for a lil bit at least xD, ima be real wit yall this is an angst fest, like a weird amount of them idk guys where did they come from, the gangs all here y'all, there's a hopeful/happy ending!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 04:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16674790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overcomingthedark/pseuds/overcomingthedark
Summary: "Gert loved Chase. Whether or not she was in love with him was still to be determined (accepted, her heart chided), but she cared about him. That much was simple, if nothing else about this situation was."~~~a lil Gert-centred fic about the two of them finding their way back to each other.





	A Long Life for You and Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fanfic_or_bust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanfic_or_bust/gifts).



> A Gift for Kelly (Fanfic_or_bust) because she's such a good friend to me and has been going through hell at work. I wanted to make her smile.  
> Hope you enjoy it babe!  
> ****  
> based on a prompt sent to me eooonnss ago by shana-rosee on tumblr, "flowers", that I had basically abandoned until very recently when I came across it again and realised I could use it to write something pretty for Kelly.  
> ****  
> Title from Long Life by Bombadil from the Runaways soundtrack bc I'm a ho for that damn soundtrack and the longing in that song is something I was trying to capture here  
> ****  
> Okay I'm done now! Enjoy loves <3

       “That’s three! Three fucking cop cars. We’re stopping for the day.” Alex squeezed out through clenched teeth. Gert saw his hands tighten around the wheel, his popping veins visible from the back seat.

       Even Nico, who had been fighting against Alex’s nervous nature since they’d started this whole road trip-slash-fleeing for their lives thing, seemed to agree. 

       “This definitely isn’t normal pig behaviour. Where are we again?” She turned in the front seat to look back at Molly, the groups’ appointed ‘map girl’ (“It’s one of my many superpowers!”) and the face she met was puzzled. 

       “Literally nowhere.” Molly replied. She half crumpled the map and passed it up to the front, Gert protesting lamely at the dismissive treatment of the delicate decades-old map she’d found abandoned at a quiet gas station a state or so back. 

       “I mean, obviously,” Nico said absent-mindedly, un-crumpling the map across the dashboard and trying to make sense of it. 

       The back and fo rth continued, but Gert tuned it out. She turned to watch the trees whizz past in the weak afternoon light, estimating them to be somewhere in south-eastern Washington, going by the time they’d last passed a town and the dense foliage surrounding them. 

       It made Gert think of Twilight, which made her giggle to herself and glance at Karo, sleeping against the window opposite her. The girl had been obsessed with a capital O and middle-school-Gert wasn’t far behind, though more quiet about her fan-girling. As much as the stories made her shake her head now, those tortured, sexy vampires had been Gert’s sexual awakening. And at that thought, her mind turned to Chase, because of course it did. Anything and everything made her think of that boy these days, it was her new normal. 

       Gert sighed quietly to herself and wondered if he was awake in the seat behind her. He’d been quiet for a while now, and she hoped he was sleeping. He liked to take the night shift when it was his turn to keep watch, and by the way his eyes looked perpetually black and blue, she knew he didn’t make up for it nearly enough during daylight hours. 

       She sighed again, frustrated with herself for noticing and frustrated at her frustration. She had no idea where they stood, and the holding pattern they’d fallen into was driving her nuts. And probably breaking her heart a little bit, but she routinely refused to acknowledge that part in favour of staying sane and able to function. She felt like she was split right down her middle, half of her wanting to just wrap him up in her arms and kiss him senseless, with the other half of her curled away in fear and wanting to avoid as much contact as was feasible when living with him in a van with four other people and a dinosaur. 

       Thinking about him at all made her ache, which was a problem, considering he was all she could freaking think about. 

       She was shaken out of her reverie by the car slowing down and bumping its way over uneven ground. A glance out the windshield showed that Alex and Nico had managed to find a place out of view of the road where they could lay low, but tuning back into the conversation, she realised it wasn’t their final stop that day.

       “Aside from that, it’s supposed to get freezing tonight.” Karo finished with gumption. Gert had no idea what Karolina’s arguments had been while she’d been clued out, but the grumbles from Alex, and Molly’s clear excitement to get out and stretch her legs, gave her enough functioning information of the situation that she could piece together the rest. They needed to avoid the police on the road, but Karolina must have been making sure they found a real place to sleep tonight. Alex hated spending money but once Karo decided something like this, they were all better off just going along with it. One of the many things they were all learning about each other, stuck together as they were.

       Gert hopped out of the car once the engine was off and let Molly rush past her to get to the back of the van, throwing the door open and cooing over Old Lace when she climbed out and stretched. Gert felt called to her, like she always did with the dinosaur, but turned to Karo instead, still bundled in blankets in her seat, seemingly already half-way back to sleep. 

       “When are we hitting the road again?” Gert asked, hoping that Alex or Nico, now pouring over the map spread across the van’s hood would be able to answer her if Karolina was too far gone. She resolutely didn’t look towards Chase, though she noticed without her permission that he’d climbed out the back with Lacey, and could vaguely register his voice, simultaneously calming and igniting, quietly talking with Molly. 

       Nico glanced at her standing alone next to the van and shot her a look Gert refused to decipher (though it read somewhere between sympathy and pity). 

       “Not for at least an hour. Alex is going to boot up the radio and see if we can’t figure out why so many cops are around, and we still have to try and find a motel on this ratchet-ass map that will take cash.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Nico’s attention was back to her task, and Gert was left pretty much alone. 

       Looking around, she realised the forrest opposite from where they’d driven in was thin, daylight and some sort of clearing evident on the other side, and suddenly all Gert wanted was to be over there, by herself, and away from the bubble of stress that always existed around the van. A wall of trees was almost as good as a real wall, and certainly better than nothing, which is what Gert had gotten used to the past few weeks. 

       “I’m just gonna take a walk through those trees there, I won’t go far.” She said to no one in particular, secretly hoping no one had heard so she’d get some time alone to her thoughts.

       Navigating the strip of forrest was more difficult than it looked, but when Gert got to the other side, she instantly knew it was worth it. 

       A breeze brushed her face, and with it the most pleasant scent of  _ something _ filled her nose. Pine, but something else too, something floral, that must have been coming from the fall flowers dotted around the meadow in front of her. She felt cheesy calling it that, her brain flashing back to her dwellings on Twilight not even an hour before, but it really was the best descriptor for it. Grass, growing tall and unchecked, bent gently in the breeze, wildflowers intermingled in a way that seemed designed. Gert could see the sky starting to light up in brilliant colour, the preview of what was sure to be a beautiful sunset. 

       The culmination of it all took her breath away, and she felt at peace. She hadn’t felt this calm since long before everything with Pride went down, and silently thanked Alex for his overly-cautious ways which led to her finding this place. She walked farther in, and settled down when all she could hear was the nature around her. The anxiety inside her faded as the sounds of car doors opening and shutting and the chatter and buzz of her friends did. 

       She turned her face up to the sky as she settled back onto her hands, and the quiet was bliss.

 

***

       Gert had no idea how much time had passed when she heard someone making their way up to her from behind, twigs crunching underfoot, but she felt like she was waking from a delicious dream. 

       Assuming it was Molly or Old Lace come to nag her, she huffed out a breath before calling back with amusement evident in her voice, 

       “You better not be a sexy vampire here to tell me my blood is irresistible! ‘Cause that’s old news, I already know I’m a catch.” The last words died in her throat when she glanced to her left and saw it was Chase who was sitting down beside her.

       He looked beautiful. The sunset reflected off his face in a way that almost hid his exhaustion, and it sent a pang through Gert that sent her aching. 

       “Sorry, I um, I thought you were Molly.” She managed out, her voice pained even to her ears. She cringed when she saw a shadow pass over his features at her words, and opened her mouth to ramble out more apologies when Chase laughed. 

       It was bleak, and...wet? Gert’s heart wrenched. He cleared his throat and looked away from her, seeming to steel himself before turning back towards her. 

       “Sorry to disappoint, just wanted to check you were alright, and to get away from the crazy. I don’t want to bother you, I can go.” He shifted as he spoke, as if to get up again, and she could see the pain he was tamping down. Before she knew what she was doing, Gert had her hand firmly pressing against his on his knee. She darted her eyes away from his face and swallowed thickly. 

       “You can stay.” She wasn’t looking at him when she said it, but she felt his body relax some, and felt him breathe out slowly, his breath blowing onto the hand she still held tightly against his own. It sent shivers up and down her spine.

       She glanced back toward him and saw he was staring at their hands determinedly. Before Gert could get caught up in her embarrassment and snatch her hand away, he turned his hand over in hers and interlaced their fingers. 

       For the second time that afternoon, Gert was breathless. Chase didn’t make any comment, just relaxed his legs and brought their hands into his lap. He wasn’t looking at her, seemed to be taking in the beauty of the meadow, so she took the opportunity to study him. She hadn’t been able to really look at him like this in weeks, and as gorgeous as he was (of course he was, he was  _ Chase _ ) what she saw worried her. None of them were eating properly, it was impossible to the way they were living, but she tried to think back and remember if she could picture him eating when the rest of them did. She came up blank, and a pit formed in her gut. His cheeks were too hollow.

       And besides that, he looked sad. Profoundly so. It brought tears to her eyes. Gert felt compelled to  _ fix _ , and was tempted to call him out, reprimand him for not taking better care with himself, but knew that wouldn’t actually help anyone. Her heart spoke up from where she kept it locked away and let her know something she could fix- or at least start to repair- and it made her anxiety fizzle back into existence. 

       Gert loved Chase. Whether or not she was  _ in _ love with him was still to be determined (accepted, her heart chided), but she cared about him. That much was simple, if nothing else about this situation was. It occurred to her that this limbo the two of them were in was just as painful for him as it was for her, and she could alleviate that pain by just finally facing her anxiety and talking about it. She had a feeling Chase had avoided the conversation until now because of how she withdrew the last time he tried to bring it up, so it was up to her now. 

       If he told her he wanted to move past what had happened between them and just be friends again, she would be facing a whole different kind of heartbreak, but at least Chase would hopefully start to feel better. Maybe he’d start to sleep more if the stress and awkwardness she brought to the table were addressed. It was worth a shot. 

_        And maybe _ , her heart spoke up one last time, _ he’ll feel the same way _ . Her pulse raced at the thought. She looked out at the nature surrounding them to build up her courage. If she had to get her heart broken, at least it could be here, in a place that felt like it had fallen out of a fairytale. 

       Flowers the colour of the coming sunset caught her eye, and she smiled and picked one. However this went, she would still have Chase; she was beginning to understand that’d she’d always have him. The two of them- the group of them- they were family now and nothing she could say or do could ruin that, anxiety be damned. 

       She looked over at Chase and squeezed his hand. He glanced down towards her and before she lost her nerve she handed him the flower. He looked at her puzzled, a half smile on his face, and his eyes grounded her. Gert smiled back, trying to cram all of her love and care and understanding into her gaze.

       “Hey,” She said. 

       He grinned at her. 

       “Hey.”

**Author's Note:**

> And They Lived Happily Ever After!  
> ****  
> Or not, if you're miserable and don't want to imagine that they worked everything out beautifully and are now v happy and in mutual love :p  
> ****  
> Let me know what you thought! Or come hang with me on tumblr at  
> overcoming-the-dark  
> I'd love to chat with y'all!  
> ****
> 
>  
> 
> ONLY A MONTH AND TWO DAYS UNTIL S2 DROPS HOLY SHITBALLS YALL H Y P E


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